5 I 35 

/ 1 



■^■■BPf" 



HON. JOHN THOMSON MASON'S 



ADDRESS. 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



AMERICAN WHIG AND CLIOSOPMC SOCIETIES 



OF THE 



COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 



JUNE !4tb, 1849. 



/ 



By the Hon. JOHN THOMSON MASON. 




™ PRINCETON: 

PRINTED BY JOHN T. ROBINSON. 

1850. 



JOp 



\3^ 



Extract from the Minutes of the Cliosophic Society. 

Resolved, That a Committee be appointed to request of J. Thomson 
Mason, Esq., for publication, a copy of the address delivered by him before 
the American Whig and Cliosophic Societies, upon Tuesday, June 26, 1849. 
By order of the Society. 



Extract from the Minutes of the American "Wliig Society. 

Resolved, That a committee be appointed to return suitable thanks to the 

Hon. J. Thomson Mason, for the able and eloquent address delivered by 

him before the Cliosophic and American Whig Societies, on Tuesday, June 

26, 1849 ; and also to request a copy for publication. 

R. S. FIELD, Esq., ) 

T. GEORGE WALL. > Committee. 

JOHN JOHNS, J*. S 



ADDRESS 



But a few years have elapsed since my connection as 
a student with this institution ; yet when my mind re- 
verts from the present scene to the period when I first 
entered College, a timid inexperienced youth, an exile 
from home and all its joys; when I rememher how I 
shrank from a participation in the new scenes which 
were about to surround me, and from an intercourse 
with my future unknown companions; while on the 
other hand, I am now enjoying the thrill of pleasure 
which the memory of tiliose very scenes and those very 
companions inspires ; — I can hardly realize that the boy 
whose happiness was to be seen only in the future, in a 
restoration to the pleasures ol his home, is identical with 
the man whose chief joys are to be found in the memory 
of the past, in the recollection of college days, and all 
the delightful associations that cluster around that period 
of his life. 

It will prove, my young friends, I fear, a fruitless under- 
taking, to attempt to impress your minds in any adequate 
degree with the true character of the results which 
follow the transition from the state of youth and tutelage 
to that of manhood and independence. During our 
connection with college, we are taught by others, and 
can rely with confidence upon the skill and wisdom ot 
our preceptors in the instructions they impart. \Vhen 
we enter upon the world as men, we become our own 



teachers, and must depend upon ourselves for the course 
we are to pursue. Indeed, at this period, self-reliance 
is regarded not only as a duty, but also as a privilege, 
and we view with impatience and displeasure any 
attempt to continue, a system of restraint. Experience 
becomes the fountain from Which we draw our lessons 
of wisdom. 

Whatever may have been our previous advantages, 
and however assiduously and successfully we may have 
employed them, a knowledge of the world, of the 
motives which influence mankind in their intercourse 
with each other, the proper appreciation of human 
character, must mainly, if not exclusively, be acquired 
by experience. 

When the young man commences life and finds 
himself, for the first time, thrown upon his own re- 
sources, amid the dangers, temptations and tempests, 
kvhich all have to encounter to a sweater or less degree, 
if he can realize that he is supported by sound moral 
and Christian principles, and that he has acquired the 
power of thought, of mental concentration, of drawing 
correct conclusions from ascertained facts, he has 
secured all the benefits, all the assistance, that education 
can bestow upon him. The soil is then fertilized and 
tilled, ready to receive the seeds of experience. The 
canvass is prepared to retain the touches from the pencil 
of nature's great artist. 

You are, my young friends, about to take this impor- 
tant step; about to end your academic career, and at 
once to enter, as men and citizens, upon the great drama 
uf human life; and you may regard yourselves happy 
indued, if you are sensible of the true and profound 
nature of the change which must and will immediately 
take place in all your habits, pursuits and feelings. 



Although the very general opinion, that boyhood and 
youth are almost the only seasons of happiness in this 
life, is erroneous, yet there are joys and pleasures of the 
most exquisite and refined nature, which are peculiar to 
those periods, and which we part with forever when we 
assume the more dignified offices of manhood. You 
will hardly have left this peaceful abode before you will 
fully discover, that in addition to the other ties which 
bin 1 you to your Alma Mater, you will be attached to it 
by the recollection, that many a departed hope and joy 
of your youthful hours lies buried there; and as fond 
parents revisit the tomb of their offspring, and bathe the 
cold marble with their tears, so, my young friends, in 
after life, when disappointment has been experienced, 
when ambition has seduced you, when friends have 
proved false, and when even the sweet consolations of 
hope are gone, your heart will turn back to your college 
life, to the play days of your early years, to the bright 
visions and romantic dreams when life was new and 
hope was high, to find a refuge for a stricken heart in 
the memory of bygone days and cherished companions: 

" To view the fairy haunts of long lost hours, 
Blest with far gi - cenur shades, far fresher llowers." 

These pleasures of your youth are hereafter to be enjoy- 
ed only in memory. The hour has arrived for many to 
take their final leave of each other. The ties which 
have so long encircled you, are perhaps to be severed 
forever. The voices which have so often enlivened 
these halls with shouts of youthful merriment, will be 
heard no more. The warm, cordial, unaffected grasp of 
friendship has been felt for the last time. Gone, forever 
gone, are the companions and scenes of your college life. 
It is a lesson of religion, in the truth of which we all 
acquiesce, that man's life upon this earth is designed by 



his Creator as a mere state of preparation for an existence 
beyond the grave : and thus, in this elevated point of 
view, it may properly be said that our course of educa- 
tion commences with our birth, and ends only with our 
death ; the acquisition of wisdom being the great object 
of human life. But the term education, as we propose 
to employ it on the present occasion, is designed to be 
understood in its popular sense, and to have reference 
exclusively to the period of our academic and collegiate 
course. 

The great and leading design of education, as has 
already been intimated, is but a preparation of the mind 
for the reception and synthesis of facts drawn from 
reading and experience, out of which stores of wisd «m 
are to be accumulated. Every youthful student re- 
members the feelings of impatience witli which he 
entered upon the study of the dry, abstruse principles of 
a science to which he never in after life expected to 
refer. He could not comprehend why the acquisition of 
what he termed useful information was to be postponed 
for the theories of some dull and useless art; why he 
should plod over a conic section, or a satire of Juvenal, 
when his time could be so much more proiitablj T em- 
ployed in immediate preparation for the pulpit, the bar, 
the counting house, or whatever other pursuit he might 
intend to follow. Nor is this error confined to the youth 
and the student. Parents, impatient to see the early 
fruits of education developed in their children, hurry 
them on in their studies, regardless whether they have 
laid any enduring foundation upon which to rest their 
future acquisitions. As well might the husbandman 
ask, Why am I to spend my tune and exhaust my 
strength in laborious efforts to furrow the soil and prep ire 
it for the seed ? While I am thus engaged, would not 



the seed sown upon the ungenial surface be germinating 
and maturing ? It is one of the greatest popular errors 
of the age, that we are to measure the fruits of a colle- 
giate education by the amount of crude facts which a 
student is able to collect during his academic career. 
No inquiry is made as to what disposition the mind can 
make of these facts, after they have been thus acquired. 
Is it capable of analyzing or systematizing them 1 has it 
the power of building intellectual edifices out of this 
unshapen material ? I have known young men to 
graduate from this and other institutions, carrying with 
them the highest honours of their class, yet liable to the 
taunts of those who sneer at this system of mental 
discipline, because, perhaps, they were ignorant of that 
shallow historical and literary gossip which a month's 
intercourse with the frivolous circles of fashion would 
enable any one easily to attain. During our passage 
through college we observe, that while some of our 
associates are toiling over the dull and severe studies of 
their class, others are devoting their time and attention 
to the pages of fascinating history, and the works of light 
literature, romance and poetry. At t!;e end of their 
collegiate course, the latter are denominated gentlemen 
of accomplished education, while the former are re- 
garded as mere plodders, who have passed their time in 
unprofitable labor. We do not by any means condemn 
the study of history or of lighter literature at proper 
times and on fit occasions ; nor do we con tend that the 
ends of education have been wholly accomplished by a 
thorough disciplining of the mind. " This ought you 
to have done, and not to leave the other undone." The 
expressive language of scripture, a part of which I have 
just cited, is as applicable to the obligations of the 
student, as it is to those of the Christian. Severte 



10 

mental discipline is to the student what "the law, 
judgment, mercy and faith" are to the Christian, while 
we may well class the practice of cursory reading in the 
one with what "mint, anise and cummin" are to the 
other. This system of mental training in a high degree 
invigorates the power of concentration, of fixing the 
attention, which is a noble faculty of the mind ; it excites 
the power of discrimination, ripens the judgment, 
quickens the apprehension, gives activity and acuteness 
to the understanding, while at the same time it brings 
all its powers into complete discipline. Without this 
solid foundation, how slender are all our future super- 
structures ; without this mental culture,' how meager 
are our future intellectual products ! We may justly 
compare the mind of a youth thus well trained, to the 
fertile, well prepared fallow field, which presents to the 
eye of the casual observer an unseemly appearance of 
barrenness and desolation. On the other hand, the 
intellect which has been decked and ornamented by the 
flowers of light reading, is like the untitled field, which, 
undisturbed by the coulter and the share, under the 
influences of the genial sun and refreshing showers of 
early spring, is covered with verdure and adorned with 
bright but short-lived flowers. Seed sown upon the one, 
which by culture has within its bosom the elements of 
fertility and life, germinate, shoot and mature, and in 
the autumnal season yield an abundant harvest. The 
other soon surrenders its rich dress to the influences of 
a burning sun, and long ere the summer months have 
passed, its early promise of fruit has faded. Seed, thus 
sown, " when the sun is up are scorched, and because 
they had not root they wither away." The effect of 
time, that great and severe test of all things, is the same 
upon the human mind ; and unless we stand firm upon 



11 

this vantage ground, the difficulties with which we 
shall have to contend in our future intellectual pursuits 
will be incalculable. Without this buckler we must at 
some time falter, if we do not fall. How many naturally 
brilliant intellects have been ruined, through a disregard 
of this principle of education, and by vicious early 
instruction ! How ea>ily does this error lead the young 
mind into careless habits of thought, which cannot be 
laid aside, and which utterly incapacitate it forever 
afterwards for mental labour. 

When the mind has thus been brought into complete 
subjection, the recitation rooms and lecture halls have 
performed their high functions. All has been done for 
the youthful mind that parental solicitude or exorbitant 
public sentiment could demand. At this epoch, your 
destiny must be committed to your own keeping. 
Unavailing, however, indeed will the efforts of your 
instructors prove, if you place your main reliance for 
success in after life upon what they have done for you, 
regardless of the obligations which society and religion 
impose, to redouble your exertions to reach the heights 
of fame and usefulness. The work of endeavouring to 
attain human perfection, which should be the great end 
and aim of man's existence, must be resumed by your- 
selves where your preceptors have left off; and unaided 
by their assiduous attentions, wise counsels, and erudite 
instructions, you must go on in this noble and upward 
enterprise. 

The simile which I have already employed to illustrate 
my view of the subject may be carried still further. It 
is not enough that you prepare the soil for the seed. 
Although the most diligent and laborious efforts mav 
have been used for that purpose, and although the earth 
may invite by its richness the husbandman's notice, yet 



12 

all this will be unavailing unless the seed be afterwards 
actually sown and assiduously cultivated. It is one 
thing to train the budding faculties of the mind for severe 
exertion, and another to store it with useful information. 
For the one we mainly depend upon tutors and schools, 
for the other we must rely exclusively upon ourselves. 
Education in our schools and colleges is but the means 
for 'acquiring knowledge ; the information, which we 
subsequently gather, when stored in a well arranged 
mind, is knowledge itself: 

" He cannot he ;i perfect man, 
Not being tried and tutor'd in the world. 
Experience is by industry achieved 
And perfected by the swift course of time." 

While education is thus expending its energies upon 
the mind, another and a more delicate and important 
field is opened for its operations, in the moral and 
religious culture of the student. And here we may 
remark is a duty imposed upon education which at once 
involves all the most sacred responsibilities which attach 
to the parent, the teacher and the pastor, on the one 
hand, and the son, the student and the Christian, on the 
other. All the illustrations, all the figures which could 
be invoked, for the purpose of representing conditions of 
weakness, of helplessness, of destitution, of insufficiency 
for accomplishing any noble enterprise, would prove 
inadequate to give an idea of the futility of man 
without morality and religion. A vessel at sea without 
a rudder; a house built upon the sand ; a tree without 
a root; the trembling dew drop, glittering in the rays of 
the rising sun ; the fleeting glories of the butterfly, are 
common-place but strong illustrations; they are too 
feeble, however, to convey the idea of a man " having no 
hope, and without God in the world." 

The first and great field, then, of education is the 



13 

heart, the second is the mind ; and these are so indisso- 
lubly connected, that in cultivating the one, you almost 
necessarily improve the other. Good moral training 
strengthens the mind, and all truths in science, in 
history, in nature and experience, when viewed in connec- 
tion with the great Author from whom they emanate, 
are eminently calculated to develope and to elevate the 
religious and moral tendencies of our nature. An 
opposite doctrine, I am aware, has been impiously 
advocated. But would it not be deemed oat of place and 
supererogatory at this enlightened period of the world, 
and upon this hallowed spot, so often sanctified by the 
embrace of Science and Religion, to attempt an argument 
against the opinion that there is often to be found a 
conflict between the doctrines revealed in the word of 
God, and the discoveries of science? What would be 
thought of the bold and reckless adventurer against 
truth, who would attempt at this day to array the 
discoveries of Copernicus, or Xewton, or La Place, or 
Davy, or Franklin, or Fulton, or Morse, or Henry, in an 
attitude hostile to the great truths of revelation? "Who 
are these men whose intellects have thrown such a flood 
of light upon subjects which hitherto had remained in 
impenetrable darkness, and revealed to common minds 
principles which before were wrapped in mystery? 
They are the creatures of Him, whose great and sublime 
code of moral law is said to be shaken and often dis- 
membered by their discoveries and expositions of the 
laws and principles of that nature, which like themselves 
emanates from the one Great Source of power and 
harmony. Every flash of their genius, every effort of 
their mind, every scintillation of their brain, is but 
the pulsation of the Great Heart of Nature, which is 
God himself, the mere result of his will. And yet we 



14 

are called upon to believe either that the Bible is a 
fiction, the work of man's invention ; or the absurdity 
that God has endowed certain created beings with 
transcendent intellects, as compared with their fellow- 
men, merely for the purpose of exposing his own folly 
and weakness, and that he was capable of creating men 
with minds sufficiently powerful to discover discrepan- 
cies between revelation and the works of nature which 
He himself was not wise enough to detect or able to 
remedy. 

Infidelity may yet furnish some advocates of a doc- 
trine so monstrous, absurd, and impious ; but whoever 
sets out with the view of investigating truth, and calls 
to his aid the lights of revealed religion for that purpose, 
cannot fail to discover the most harmonious connection 
between scriptural Christianity and the principles of 
natural science. Indeed one of the most ennobling and 
improving pursuits that can occupy the attention of an 
intellectual being is that of tracing the analogy and 
harmony between nature and Revelation. Instead of 
promoting infidelity, nothing is so well adapted to the 
expansion and elevation of our moral and religious 
faculties. And besides the religious improvement which 
is wrought through the agency of this exercise, it is a 
study, when viewed as a mere means of mental im- 
provement, as a mere sharpener of the intellect, which 
has not, perhaps its equal in the whole catalogue of 
sciences. For example, what a mental gymnasium is 
afforded by reading the works of Augustine, Chilling- 
worth, Locke, Tillotson, Jeremy Taylor, Butler, Ed- 
wards, and other like towering spirits. "When you have 
done with such a study, you will not only experience a 
great moral and religious improvement, and find that 
you have been drawn nearer to your God, and are already 



15 

in a condition to taste and appreciate the joys which 
only begin where this life ends; but you will find also 
that all the faculties of the mind, many of them hereto- 
fore dormant or torpid, have been expanded, strengthened 
and drawn into full action. If I might be permitted to 
degrade this subject, by invoking for it the base and 
selfish motives of personal interest, I could with truth 
rest an argument in favour of moral culture upon this 
ground alone. In addition to the general elevation of 
our nature, a man finds a reward for a moral and religious 
life, in the success which generally attends all his 
worldly occupations. Success in life mostly depends 
upon confidence, and confidence is mainly the result of 
virtue, probity and consistency. Commanding talents 
and profound learning can never supply their place. 
Confidence is a plant of slow growth, and of the most 
delicate texture; its tender fibres cannot bear even the 
touch of slander, while under the blighting influence of 
suspicion they sicken and die. Virtue is the soil in 
which it flourishes. Vice itself respects virtue. Those 
who are lost to moral influences, pay deference to men 
who are governed by them. 

Some of the incidental advantages of a public training 
may with propriety be enumerated on the present 
occasion, and considered in connection with the two 
great, main ends of education which I have feebly 
attempted to elucidate. One of the most important 
duties enjoined upon us as creatures of God, and as 
members of society, is the cultivation of social intercourse, 
or of loving our neighbours as ourselves ; and pre-emi- 
nently opposed to this high and sacred duty is the 
ignoble principle of selfishness. Any pursuit or situa- 
tion in life, therefore, which tends to promote the one 
and to suppress the other ought to commend itself to our 



16 

special approbation. This result is in no way more 
effectually accomplished than by the cultivation of noble 
and generous friendships; and no season or circum- 
stances are better adapted to this purpose than the 
season of our youth and the circumstances connected 
with a college life. Here, in early youth, before we have 
commenced our struggles with the world, or learned the 
necessity of assiduous attention to our own peculiar 
interests, friendship, planted in such a soil and fostered 
by such a season, cannot but prosper and ripen into an 
abiding, permanent love, which neither length of time 
nor revolving circumstances can ever change. In after 
life neither prosperity nor misfortunes, neither honour nor 
obscurity, neither age nor infirmities, can tear us from 
the friendships which have been here formed and 
matured, nor interrupt the calm, smooth current of social 
intercourse which springs from the youthful heart. As 
the affectionate child cherishes the tender recollections 
of its parents and the early joys of home, so do our 
affections cluster around this endeared spot, and around 
the memory of those youthful friends who are so indis- 
solubly connected with it. And as a new asterisk is 
affixed to the name of some college companion, among 
those that appear upon each returning catalogue, we feel 
that another star has fallen from the bright galaxy of 
youthful friendship, and that each of these returning 
events but tends to increase the gloom and desolation 
which continue to thicken around us as life advances 
and cares multiply. Friendship is more than an empty 
name. It is a feeling that certifies our divine nature. 
It is allied to love, which is the law of Heaven ; and he 
who fosters the noble emotion is but fulfilling God's 
commandment. It is then a high and sacred duty that 
we should endeavour to enlarge the circle of our friends, 



17 

and to increase our love for them. No situation in life 
is more favourable to the attainment of both these ends, 
than the one to which many of you are about to bid a 
last farewell. The ties of friendship are generally strong 
in proportion to the trials and difficulties under which 
they are formed ; and hence friendships originating here 
are most enduring. For it cannot be denied that our 
first entrance upon college life involves some of the 
severest and bitterest sacrifices which we are capable of 
making, either then or in after life ; and thus the aiiec- 
tions here formed, is "sub sole, sub umbra virens." 

Again, we learn, by mingling with youthful com- 
panions, lessons in human nature of incalculable benefit, 
and winch are as enduring as life itself. The guileless- 
ness of youth, when acts are not carefully guarded by 
tiie keen eye of experience or restrained by the dictates 
of selfishness, is peculiarly -adapted lo the development 
of the true springs ol human action, by which we learn 
to detect the difference between real and pretended 
motives, between nature and affectation. The great 
study of man should be man himself; for, in the study 
Of human nature, we at once lind the held m which the 
mind is mainly to be employed in its future wide and 
diversified action, iiut while this is an important study, 
it is also a dangerous one; for in our efforts to become 
familiar with human nature we are often led into a great 
at.d disastrous error, both here and in alter life. INiany 
of us suppose that the haunts of felly and wickedness are 
the only places where the study of human nature can 
successfully be pursued, and that if we can make our- 
selves acquainted with the vices of men we have learned 
their entire nature. In this way we form not only an 
incorrect and onesided view of the great subject we are 
investigating, but we become first familiar, then fascina- 



18 

ted with vice, and almost unconsciously fall into habits 
of wickedness, and thus turn the very study which 
should have been a great instrument in our moral and 
mental improvement, into the means of accomplishing 
our ruin. The study of human nature is made the 
pretext, with some of our boys and young men, for their 
visits to the gaming table, the race field, the brothel, and 
such other scenes of iniquity. Here, they say, is to be 
seen man in all his undisguised deformities; here are to 
be discovered the sources and origin of human motives. 
But nothing could be further from the truth. Such 
scenes are the very hot-beds of deceit and selfishness ; 
and the intemperance and riots, which so often attend 
them, are but methodized systems of deceplion. 

Lessons of wisdom acquired in such schools, and from 
such teachers, are purchased at a high price and at a 
great risk, to say the least. There are persons who 
suppose they are familiar with the world because they 
know its vicious propensities. But this knowledge 
embraces but one and that a dark view of human 
character; and if we go no further in the investigation, 
we shall find that instead of reaping improvement from 
the study, we shall have sustained a positive injury, we 
shall have acquired a iittle learning, which will prove 
a dangerous thing. 

An eminent philosophic writer observes : " We 
generally find indeed, that men are governed by their 
weaknesses, not their vices ; and those weaknesses are 
often the most amiable part about them. It is a know- 
ledge of these weaknesses, as if by a glance, that serves 
a man better in the understanding and conquest of his 
species, than a knowledge of the vices to which they 
lead ; it is better to seize the one cause, than to ponder 
over the thousand effects." It is the former knowledge 



19 

which I chiefly call the knowledge of the world. It is 
this peculiar insight into human character that should 
claim our earnest attention. It is this weakness of 
character which leads us into every species of excess, 
and it, as the cause, should be studied, in order that 
vice, which is its effect, should be avoided ; and to com- 
mence with the study of human depravity is to begin 
this great pursuit where we should have left it off. 
Hence we often find that some of the best delineators of 
human character, the most astute observers of the 
motives of men, the best analyzers of the heart, are 
those who know least by practical observation of the 
vices and depravity of their fellow-men ; while on the 
other hand those w T ho are most familiar with depraved 
human nature, by actual participation in it, are generally 
the most ignorant of the causes which lead to such over- 
whelming and ruinous consequences, of the means of 
avoiding them, and of themode of reclaiming fallen man 
from his evil ways. The acquisition of a knowledge of 
human character is the precious fruit of this peculiar 
study, and a young man has not passed through a 
collegiate course in vain, if he can but realize that he 
has made material progress in the study of man. 

In future life, much, if not the chief part of his 
success, his happiness and his usefulness, will depend 
upon the amount which he may possess of this species of 
knowledge. By it what mastery we possess over our 
fellow-men ! What a pre-eminent position we occupy 
in all the relations of life! How we triumph in all the 
conflicts in which human passions are involved ! But 
above all this, while it enables us to discover and guard 
against the weaknesses of others, to triumph over ex- 
ternal difficulties, we are at the same time enabled to 
enjoy the victory, by bringing our own passions, our 



20 

own heart, into perfect subjection, and thus we may- 
tread with confidence the long and bright career that 
now for the first time is opened to youthful ambition, 
sustained by an abiding ever-present assurance that we 
possess the means within ourselves, if we but employ 
them, of passing safely and triumphantly through life. 
As a general rule, it may here be remarked, that 
the study of the world must of necessity be only com- 
menced during the period of our youth ; that perfection 
in this study can never be attained in this life, however 
great our progress in it may have been, and that the 
best teacher we can employ for the purpose is experience. 
But this knowledge of human nature, as possessed by 
particular individuals, is often beyond explanation, and 
cannot be reduced to any rules or system. In some it 
seems to be a gift of nature, which is not strengthened 
by after study or experience. Its lirst developments in 
early life are as mature as they are in riper years. In 
vindication of the truth of these remarks, there are many 
instances on record of this species of intuitive knowledge 
of human character to which we might refer. For 
instance, the best anecdotes of the sagacity of Cyrus 
are those of his boyhood. Talleyrand's childhood was 
characterized by the same shrewdness which marked his 
riper years. Congreve had written his conn dies at 
twenty-five. Napoleon was master of the human heart 
longf before he had attained the age of manhood. The 
unsurpassed poetry of Kirke White, which discovered 
the deepest knowledge of human motives, was the fruit 
of his youth. 

■ ing briefly, and I fear with ill success, attempted 
to enumerate some of the main and incidental designs of 
education, 1 might with propriety at this point conclude 
my address and take my leave of you. But to those who 



21 

have already terminated their collegiate career, and to 
whom my previous remarks may not be specially appli- 
cable, I must be permitted to make a few additional 
observations upon this most important and interesting 
epoch of their lives. 

It seems to me that the present is a period peculiarly 
interesting- and solemn to all those who are for the first 
time about to enter upon the scenes of life, and who are 
possessed of reflective and well organized minds, capable 
of surveying and comprehending the great objects of 
human existence. It is an elevated spot in the journey, 
from which you can look back upon the road you have 
passed; and forward, and indistinctly discern in the 
hazy future the road which lies before you. On the 
one hand you behold bright paths and fairy fields, 
strewed with the flowers of childhood's days, over which 
you have just passed, but which you shall never traverse 
again. On the other hand you behold the rugged steeps 
which are before you in your future career. Oh ! what 
revolutions in feelings, in motives, in purposes, in sym- 
pathies await you ! Now you are gay and happy ; with 
bosoms unmoistened by the tears of sorrow, unclouded 
by misfortune. But in a few years more how will it be 
with you ? Where will the vicissitudes of life have led 
you ? To honour, to disgrace, or to sorrow ? If friend- 
ship, or the cause of literature, in after years, shall 
summon you once more to meet in affectionate commu- 
nion upon this hallowed spot, what response will be 
made to the call, and where shall you be found ? The 
voice of Fame would answer, and echoing back would 
direct us to the summit of distinction and power, where 
many of you would be in the full exercisa of those 
virtues which adorn the head and heart ! The voice of 
inexorable Death would thunder beneath our feet, and 

2 



22 

glory in the number and richness of his spoil ! Nor 
would Misfortune be silent, but with eyes bedewed with 
tears, and cheeks furrowed by the share of sorrow, would 
number many in her weeping train. But rather far let 
Death and .Misfortune claim you, than that you should 
be numbered on the catalogue of crime ! Before you 
advance far upon your future journey, disappointment, 
sorrow, bereavement, care, infirmity, ill-health, will one 
by one unite themselves to your train, and as insepara- 
ble companions some of them will attend you through 
life ; and, unless banished by the aid of religion and 
philosophy, will certainly surround you, and add new 
terrors to your bed of death. Has Education armed you 
with the weapons by which to resist and finally to con- 
quer these enemies? Are your head and your heart 
well stored for the journey upon which you are about to 
enter ? Have you consented to receive the good things 
which your Alma Mater is always ready so abundantly 
to lavish upon her sons 1 

A young man then who is about to enter upon the 
troubled sea of life, richly freighted with the golden 
fruits of education, is transcendently blessed. But let 
him not fall into the error of a false reliance upon his 
honourable and noble acquirements, as supposing that 
in these are to be found a safeguard against every dan- 
ger, or a means for surmounting every difficulty. It 
cannot be questioned that they will prove the most 
valuable aid that human ingenuity could devise, in 
every trial or difficulty; but that they will be an 
antidote for all the ills of life, or render labour of mind 
or body unnecessary or unavailing in his future pursuits, 
is not for one moment contended. 

first and by far the most important step which 
you are to take is to make choice of a pursuit or profes- 



23 

sion. It is lamentable that this step is often taken 
without due consideration of the true character of the 
profession you may have selected, or your intellectual or 
physical adaptation for pursuing it successfully. This 
error is often attended by the saddest consequences. It 
dooms many to obscurity and want who otherwise might 
have been eminently successful. There are two pre- 
vailing errors upon this subject, which are the very 
opposite of each other. By some it is supposed that a 
brilliant intellect and an accomplished education have 
no field suited to them, other than the pursuit of one of 
the learned professions ; while, on the other hand, many 
believe, that distinction in these professions is alike 
accessible to all, and that no previous mental cultivation 
is specially necessary for attaining their highest positions. 
Law, medicine, and divinity have been termed the 
learned professions. When we look around and see who 
compose these professions ; when we observe the igno- 
rance, the stupidity, and the narrow-minded prejudice, 
which prevail in each one of them, we must admit that 
it is a great perversion of terms to call them " learned 
professions." The epithet, learned, as applied to those 
professions, had its origin in times long since past, when 
doubtless there was some fitness in its application. But 
now, among certain classes, no peculiar excellence is 
necessary to make a lawyer, a physician, or a clergyman. 
Many gentlemen of the "learned" professions of the 
present day, have never received the benefits of an ordi- 
narv education, are neither self-taught (as are many of 
our greatest men), nor trained by the teachings of others. 
The knowledge which they arrogate to themselves they 
claim as if by inspiration from Heaven. Some arc in 
the full possession, they suppose, of all the elements of 



24 

distinction for their future profession from their birth, 
and it is very often the case that neither time, nor their 
future acquirements tend, in the slightest degree, to 
increase their claims to eminence. Others, finding 
themselves unfit for other pursuits, or too indolent to live 
by labour, seek a refuge for imbecility, idleness and igno- 
rance under the cloak of one of the "learned professions." 
If the son of a man in the humbler walks of life evinces 
any signs of genius before he is five years old ; whether 
it be the result of accident or not, his name is at once 
enrolled for one of the learned professions, and the labour, 
economy and self-denial of his parents are from that 
moment dedicated to the preparation of their son for his 
entrance upon the new sphere of action. On the other 
hand, the sons of all men, with few exceptions, in the 
higher circles of life, as they are termed, are, long be- 
fore they are born, designated for the same honourable 
distinction ; as being the only proper pursuit for men 
in their exalted position in society ; and this deter- 
mination is afterwards obstinately persisted in, without 
any reference to their future intellectual developments. 
In this way these dignified and honourable professions 
are converted into a sort of Alms House, for the reception 
of the blind, halt, and pauper intellects of our country. 
When we reflect how delicate, how important, how vital 
are the interests, whether they relate to time or eternity, 
which are committed to the keeping of the men who 
compose these professions, and how inadequate they 
often are to discharge the high and sacred duty, we are 
led to exclaim in bitterness, that such a condition of 
things should not exist. The choicest intellect, the 
purest moral character, the most vigorous constitution, 
united with the highest condition of culture in each, will 



25 

find in the study of any one of the learned professions 
a field amply larg* and fertile to call forth the best efforts 
which they maybe capable of invoking. 

On the other hand, it is a great error to suppose thai 
there are no pursuits in life worthy of the high calling 
of a scholar and a student, other than the learned pro- 
fessions. Of necessity but a small portion of mankind 
can find profitable employment as professional men; 
and it certainly could never have been the design of the 
Great Author of the universe that nine-tenths or more 
of the human family should be endowed mth intellec- 
tual faculties for no other purpose than that they should 
remain forever dormant, or discharge functions of the 
brute. I am aware that there are some enemies of 
human rights, who assert and maintain an opposite 
doctrine, and who advocate the slavery and debasement 
of the human mind, as better suited to the labouring 
portion of society, or " the hewers of wood and drawers 
of water." Thanks be to the Giver of all good, that we 
live in a country in whose soil such doctrines can 
never find root, and in an age that, will chill and blight 
the budding of such sentiments. 

The mind of man can find something to employ it in 
every pursuit of life however humble ; and every occu- 
pation can be elevated and more successfully followed 
by invoking the aid of the mental faculties. What 
pursuit affords a better field for the study of science, and 
for the general improvement of the mind, than an en- 
lightened system of agriculture ? Of all the occupations 
which can employ the attention of man, none affords 
greater facilities for the development of the noblest 
faculties of the mind and heart than agriculture. None 
is so free from temptations ; none more honourable ; none 
attended with more happiness ; none better adapted to 

2* 



26 

the cultivation of social pleasures, or of an affection- 
ate and reciprocal interchange of sentiment and opinion ; 
none so well fitted to elevate and expand our ideas of 
the Deity, or to promote a love for, and an obedience to 
his great laws ! 

" Give me, indulgent gods ! with mind serene, 
And guiltless heart, to range the sylvan scene ; 
No splendid poverty, no smiling care, 
No well-bred hate, or servile grandeur there ; 
The pleasing objects useful thoughts suggest, 
The sense is ravish'd and the soul is blest; 
On every thorn delightful wisdom glows, 
In every rill a sweet instruction flows." 

Yet there are some who would consign this ennobling 
pursuit to serfs and vassals, and close up this bright 
avenue which leads to refinement and wisdom, against 
all but the most degraded of our species. 

Agriculture and civilization have through all time 
advanced hand in hand, and have ever been insepara- 
ble companions ; and when the former is suffered by a 
people to languish, it is a certain indication that they 
are in danger of relapsing into a state of barbarism, and 
that refinement, science and literature, and all the arts 
of peace, have attained their acme, and have begun and 
must thenceforward continue to recede. The condi- 
tions of all the nations of the earth at present attest the 
truth of these remarks, and they are equally applicable 
to the nations of antiquity. The ancient Romans in 
the days of their glory and power were so devoted to 
agriculture that their most illustrious commanders were 
sometimes called from the plough. Their refined and 
enlightened senators commonly resided in the country, 
and cultivated the ground with their own hands ; and, 
among all classes of society, to be a good husbandman 
was accounted the highest praise. A noble Roman was 
overwhelmed with tears on being obliged to accept the 



consulship because it would deprive him for one year of 
the opportunity of cultivating his fields. 

Shakspeare, with as much truth as beauty, says in 
regard to a rational and rural solitude : 

"Hath not old custom made this life more sweet 
Than that of painted pomp 1 Are not these woods 
More free from peril than the envious court ? 
And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." 

The mechanic arts, every one of them to a greater or 
less degree, are governed by scientific principles, and 
cannot be successfully pursued without a certain amount 
of mental cultivation. No limits can be assigned to the 
improvements which might be made in every art, were 
the lights of science and of education allowed to shine 
upon them ; and that which is now but a process of dull 
and painful imitation, might, by the application of a 
cultivated mind, become a pleasing study, which would 
be constantly developing some 1 new principle in science, 
and furnishing fresh food for the mind to feed upon. 
Hence I assume the position, that education is designed 
by Providence as a means for the elevation of the entire 
human family, or of as many as can attain to it, and that 
its blessings and honours are not to be confined to a fa- 
voured few. 

In this country the road to station, honour and fame 
is alike open to all, and although it may appear at first 
inaccessible, yet every obstacle which is encountered, 
however formidable, must yield to the power of an 
educated mind, when united with industry and perse- 
verance. All the high places in our land may seem to 
be filled, and their honours to be appropriated ; thousands 
of anxious expectants may be before you crowding 
every avenue which leads to distinction and power ; but 



28 

let not honourable ambition falter in her efforts, nor 
talents and virtue be dismayed. Keep before you the 
result of the contest which ./Eneas invited among the 
Trojan marksmen, which Virgil has made you familiar 
with, and which so aptly illustrates the value of perse- 
verance and resoluteness. A dove was suspended to 
the mast of a ship, at which the competitors for the prize 
were to direct their arrows. The son of Hyrtacus first 
wins applause by planting his arrow in the trembling 
mast, near the affrighted bird. Mnestheus next tries 
his skill, and with well directed aim. severs the cord, 
and the liberated dove penetrates the clouds above. 
Not daunted, Eurytion, in eager haste, lets fly his arrow, 
as he beholds the joyful dove in the open sky, and 
piercing her, brings her to the earth, " having left her 
life," as Virgil beautifully expresses it, "among the 
stars of Heaven." Acestes alone remained after the 
prize was supposed to be lost ; but instead of yielding 
the contest, or giving way to disappointment or mortifi- 
cation, with a manner of confident superiority he dis- 
charged his shaft into the heavens, wkich took fire, and. 
with a flame, marked its path, till being consumed it was 
lost in air. The spectators were filled with astonish- 
ment, and iEneas, appreciating the omen, embraces 
Acestes, and in the presence of the applauding multi- 
tude thus awards him the prize : 

Nam te voluit Rex magous Olympi 



Tnlihus auspiciis exsortem ducere honorem. 

And you, my young friends, when you terminate 
your sojourn here, are to go into the world aa apostles, 
if not to preach the gospel, to fulfil a duty which in 
importance is only second to it, namely, to shed upon 
your fellow men the blessed influences of an educated 
and enlightened mind. 



29 

Independently of the immediate and direct advan- 
tages of education, its incidental benefits to an American 
citizen are of the deepest importance. Every man in 
every walk in life in a republican government like ours, 
ought, if possible, to have the benefits of a liberal educa- 
tion, to aid him as a weapon of defence, in maintaining 
the institutions and liberties of his country. It is the 
corner stone of our republican edifice that the people are 
the source of all power in our land. From them flow the 
liberty, the virtue, the honour, the law, the power, which 
so elevate us among the nations of the earth. Let us 
then by education keep that fountain pure and perpetual, 
that streams may flow therefrom blessing and elevating 
the whole race of mankind. When that source becomes 
polluted or obstructed, then will our Tree of Liberty, 
which has so long been nourished and sustained by its 
waters, languish and die. He that would deny that 
education in this country with its exhaustless fruits is 
a national right, in which all our people have a common 
interest, would question the very principles upon winch 
the government itself stands. The principles of our 
government are as plain and simple as they are beauti- 
ful and wise, and a knowledge of them is accessible to 
almost every citizen. There are those however who 
seek to veil these beautiful features in mystery, and rob 
them of their original simplicity, by engrafting upon 
them features that are foreign and hostile to their nature. 
Our system of government is rather a negative than a 
positive system. It is a government of protection, not 
of privilege ; one established to guard rights, rather than 
to bestow them. It is one of the high prerogatives of 
education in our republican country to guard against 
the inroads which are daily threatened, upon this har- 
mony and simplicity in our institutions ; to keep the 



30 

government in its proper and legitimate channel, to see 
that the rights of the governed are protected, and 
that privileges are extended unjustly to none; to see that 
the constitution, the Magna Charta of our liberties, is 
preserved in all its original purity ; to prevent the 
introduction of cunningly devised schemes, by which 
one class of our community is to be advanced or enriched 
at the expense of another ; guard and prevent the 
government from so far leaving its proper sphere of 
action as to attempt to direct, or in any way to interfere 
with the industry or private pursuits of the country ; so 
that all its powers and energies may be directed to the 
protection of the liberty, the laws, and the property of its 
people. 

Yes, my young friends, such are some of the delicate 
and momentous interests which are committed to the 
keeping of the educated youth of our land. In your 
hands, not as politicians and partizans, but as citizens 
and voters, is this sacred trust reposed ; to you are 
entrusted the principles of our government and the 
rights of the people : and the high and responsible duty 
will be discharged witfh entire success if education has 
but performed its functions upon your youthful heads 
and hearts. 

The duties and designs of education are as varied and 
as complex as they are honourable and ennobling. It 
should be present and minister on every occasion, in 
every scene, and in every enterprise having in view the 
elevation of human nature or the promotion of happiness. 
It fosters virtue, it develops science, it expands the heart, 
it elevates our ideas of God and draws us nearer to him, 
it benefits our fellow men, it destroys the reigning 
prejudices and corrects the prevailing errors of our age 
and country ; in short it is a fountain of blessed influ- 



31 

ences which flows directly from the mercy seat of the 
Giver of every good and perfect gift. And, in taking 
my leave of you, perhaps forever, what happiness 
should I experience, could I but know that I had suc- 
ceeded in awakening your hearts to a proper appre- 
ciation of this momentous subject, in guarding you 
against the fatal error of supposing that, at this period of 
your life, you might discontinue the noble work you 
have commenced, or of falling into an ignoble and 
degrading mental inactivity, by which the budding fruits 
of your early labours must wither and die, long before 
the season for their ripening has arrived. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



019 793 179 6 



